Saturday, January 13, 2007

Full Spectrum's Best of the Best, Entry #1




Aside from being the first entry on our Full Spectrum 2007 "Best of the Best" list of autism friendly products and services, the odd looking device pictured above is known as the Gaiam Balance Ball Chair

A standard, 52 cm. balance ball is safely housed in a durable, plastic chair frame. Well-mounted casters make moving the ball from setting to setting simple, and allow the child another form of unobtrusive and acceptable wiggle room.

In sensory integration focused classrooms and occupational therapy settings, the balance ball chair is also called the "ball chair" or "sitting ball". Teachers who have first hand experience with students using the balance ball chair report that this wiggle friendly replacement for the standard, hard-backed school seating is certainly worth the "old college try" with fidget prone students.

Implementing the device to a student who has extreme difficulty sitting still long enough to tend to tasks could potentially delay or even circumvent more intrusive interventions such as prescription medications. I know it saved one of my children from a seemingly inevitable prescription for Ritalin.

To fully reap the benefit of the chair's benefits, all the student need do is sit on it. His body will naturally do the rest. Designed around the concept of "active sitting", the student who sits in this chair must spend a substantial amount of energy in simply staying centered and upright.

For the child with autism or another sensory integration dysfunction, the chair provides just enough sensory feedback to allow the student to better gain control of their motor facilities. The chair also addresses the tendency of the developmentally disabled to experience low tone in the musculature of the torso and spinal erectors. A student better in control of sensory challenges is simply more comfortable inside of his own skin. The struggling student becomes more able to tend to task.

For our son, who has a tendency to seek sensory feedback by "bouncing" in his chair, or slamming against the back of a desk seat, the Gaiam Balance Ball Chair has made the difference between his spending a measly two minutes successfully sitting and working, and being able to sit and tend to work tasks for thirty to forty minutes.

Is your child one of those students who simply cannot sit still? Does he/she bounce and slam against the back of his chair frequently? Does he fidget, and squirm constantly? If so, the ball chair might be an effective tool to assist the student to meet IEP goals related to increasing time spent "on task."

If you are interested in a trial with a "ball chair", review your child's IEP document and any related therapy goals. Ask your teacher to document how much time your child is able to stay on task without excessive fidgeting. Ask what the goal for staying on task for a typically developing student your child's age is. If you perceive a substantial deficit, and your child is reported as hyper and fidgety, check in with your child's pediatrician and occupational therapist. If they are in agreement that the ball chair represents a valid intervention for your squirmy student, ask your child's IEP team to consider implementing simple and cost effective interventions such as the ball chair. Many students who do not respond to the more mainstream "chair wedges" find success using the balance ball chair.

Prices for the Gaiam ball chair range from 79.00-139.00. The chair is sturdy and well built, and should provide years of full time use. It is easily cleaned with a germicidal spray and a damp cloth.

A student who is initially exposed to the balance ball chair will predictably respond to the built in "fun factor". For this reason, it is best to introduce active sitting devices during activities that don't require great amounts of concentration, then slowly move it into the general classroom experience.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Full Spectrum's 2007 Best of the Best

Coming tomorrow!

Entry #1 in Full Spectrum's 2007 Best of the Best Autism Friendly Products and Services.

Until then, have fun guessing just what the crazy contraption pictured above is for and why this product has earned it's place on my list of must haves.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Baby, Its Cold Out There


Note: Well, in the words of Sally Field, they like me, they like me, they really, really like me! This blog will be moving to Revolution Health in the near future.

In the meantime, I'll be cross posting with a link to the new site.


Athos said: "We must carry each other. If we don't have this, what are we?" (Anne Micheals)

Lately, I live in fear for my sons. I don't know who will carry them when I'm gone. You see, David and Jamie have autism. Their early intervention years are over. Yes, they have improved. No, barring a miracle, they will never live fully independent lives.

I frequent a lot of message boards, and talk about autism to anyone who will listen to me--family members, friends, politicians, journalists. Even strangers aren't safe.

I used to find mostly polite receptions to my efforts to educate and build awareness. But the winds seem to be turning.

Lately, when it comes to discussions about developmental disabilities, I find myself defending my children's rights to exist. In increasing numbers, all people choose to see when they observe children like mine is a price tag. And they aren't careful to mince their words when they tell me that children like mine have no business stealing resources from children like theirs.

Ouch.

More and more, I hear people labelling children like mine as "drains on society." Their lives are devalued to the status of ones which never should have been at all. They are deemed bottomless pits who exist for no better reason that consume resources.

Those people don't live here, in my house. In spite of my extending open and frequent invitations, they don't bother to visit here. They are not privvy to the joys to be found in caring for people with autism.

They don't spend time with children like mine, nor do they want to. They haven't met the lives changed for the better, or the futures set onto a new path as a result of having known children like my sons.

People who harbor such hateful, elitist notions certainly can't stop to reckon the rich, spiritual treasures that are born from years of caring for a child you brought into the world who will likely never leave your side.

Most of all, I am feeling increasingly afraid because my baby boys aren't babies any more. They're turning into young men. And I am growing older.

Someday I will die.

I will leave two helpless dependents in a world that doesn't very much want them.

I've not been an idle parent. As an advocate, I had the priveledge of teaming with five other moms, and between us we did a lot to help build effective early intervention programs in SC.
Sadly, by the time those programs were in place and running well, my boys had left the years where such programs are deemed most effective.

People forget that their children's successes were built from my children's pain. And yet, I cannot begrudge those families, those children the joy they must feel in knowing they will walk away from the worst of autism's impact. I'd likely have done the same.

For my boys, early intervention has done all it will. I am satisfied that my children's legal struggles paved the way for other people's children to flourish. And I hate myself for hoping that these parents will choose to give back to the community that, but for the grace of God, could have been their children's.

My beautiful sons are pushing into their teen years. The odd behaviors and "oops" moments aren't so easily passed off as "cute" anymore. I worry about arrests. I worry about accidents. I worry about their odd actions being mistaken for assaults or violence or drug induced behavior. I worry about what happens when a sudden impulse moves into the realm of deadly action.

Most of all, I worry about who will love them when I'm not here.


Through the years, my sons have carved their niches into my heart as my prides and my joys. I've come to terms with my boy's differences. They are the growing into the young men their twin destinies deemed they must be.

But the world has not made this leap into reverent acceptance with me. My babies aren't defined as "autistic" in my mind anymore. They're just my sons.

And if, as others say, my hands are full with their care, then Iwill answer back that full hands are seldom idle ones.

Because my children have autism, I must change a world and make it ready to recieve them.


Why not join me on the journey?